SCV Camp 1524 Commander's Column for June 2022 - Southern Heritage in Summer Vacation Travels

Just took the family over to Mississippi on an annual trip which starts our summer calendar.  We stayed at the Thompson House in Leland Mississippi.  Beautiful home dating from the early 20th century with stately massive Colonial Revival columns supporting the front porch.  Wonderful wood floors and interior features.  I had wondered if it was a restored antebellum house but learned it was built by Joseph Wood Thompson who was born in 1871 in Mississippi and moved to Leland in 1891 where he married and built/renovated the home as it stands today in 1920 having prospered from banking and business ventures including farming, planting cotton which interestingly had a resurgence as “King Cotton” in that period around the turn of the century.  It was interesting to learn of the parallels with the antebellum period with the grand homes and profitable cotton plantations.  It caused me to pause and appreciate the history all around us there.

One of the funnier things I saw which was of an historical nature was a sign recognizing Dodge’s Store and Fried Chicken as having apparently just celebrated the sesquicentennial of its founding in 1872.  150 years of fried chicken.  That Dodge’s Store is certainly far different today as it stands as a convenience store on US Hwy-82 just west of Leland.  Probably the most famous footnote in the history of Leland Mississippi is in being the birthplace and hometown of Jim Henson who created the Muppets and most famously, Kermit the Frog.  There is a quaint museum there on Hwy 82 on the banks of the slow muddy waters of Deer Creek, the Birthplace of Kermit the Frog Museum, just across the creek and down from the Thompson House. 

Leland is known also for its Hwy 61 Blues Museum, part of the Mississippi Blues Trail.  Leland was Johnny Winter’s boyhood home.   The BB King Museum is just east in Indianola, his hometown and just west of his birthplace in Itta Bena.  The Leland area was occupied by the Choctaw Indians and “was fought over by the US government during the Civil War (sic) on which the Choctaw sided with the Confederacy in order to fight the Union for the return of their land.” (Leland MS, Wikepedia)   Settlers first came to the area in 1834 and plantations were established there.   As was the case for many following the War for Southern Independence, during Reconstruction, the owners  of these plantations were forced to quit claim the land for release from mortgages to banks.  In 1876, former Confederate “Captain James Alexander Ventress Feltus bought the 900 acres of land for $12000 (from the Bank of Kentucky).” (Wikepedia)  Captain Feltus established Leland by deeding land for homes, stores and the streets for the town which he named after a friend’s mother.  A very interesting history in a small town on Hwy 82 in Mississippi, including a bit of Confederate heritage.  When travelling with your family this summer, take time to look around and learn of the amazing history everywhere.  If more did so, we would have a greater appreciation for Southern heritage and American including Confederate history.